I was wondering if any experts here would be so kind as to answer some questions I have regarding upgrading the memory of an Apple 1. Particularly what would have been possible in 1976. According to this brochure it was possible to upgrade to either 32 kb of onboard RAM "once the 16k chips come out," or even to 64 kb using the edge connector. This makes it sound like one could simply purchase bigger ICs and drop them in to have 32 kb, which I suspect is probably not the case. Going through the Apple 1 Registry, it seems that only one was ever upgraded to 32 kb, with what seems to be a lot of extra work. None were ever upgraded to 64 kb. I have two questions in particular:
1. What is involved in upgrading to 32 kb of on-board RAM as the brochure suggests?
2. How did the writers of this ad expect one to actually upgrade to 64 kb of RAM in 1976? Were there expansion cards available for such a thing back then? Are there any NOW? I cannot seem to find any. Any light that could be shed on this would be appreciated.
Thank you for indulging me in my questions.
A few original systems were upgraded to either 20K or 32K. I'm unaware of any vintage commerically available Apple 1 expansion boards, except the cassette interface. There are a few made in the last 15 years or so. Note that the CFFA 1 in addition to supporting a flash file system, also includes expansion memory capability.
Wendell Sander has memory expansion instructions on his site.
http://www.apple1notes.com/old_apple/Application_Notes.html
regards,
Mike Willegal